Choices Narrow

Expanding The Hrbt May Not Be The Best Economic Choice, But Don't Dismiss It

December 07, 2008

A line has been drawn, not in the sand but in the water.

On one side - our side - Peninsula residents and elected officials who are agitating for an expansion of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.

And on the other side, officials such as Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim, who have come out in opposition to the idea after a consultant hired by the Virginia Department of Transportation said a bigger bridge could displace hundreds of homes on Willoughby Spit. That displacement shouldn't have been a surprise, and neither should it be a game-ender for the prospect of adding lanes to the HRBT.

That fresh consultant study, now under public review, lays out the options, including more tunnel lanes or even a bridge expansion of the HRBT. And those options deserve fair consideration before any single element of the region - such as Norfolk - pushes them over the side and into the drink.

The regional economic calculations may make the case against the HRBT, but let's have an open discussion, in full awareness of the competing interests on either side of the harbor.

Because Peninsula residents are more likely to cross the harbor for work, shopping, medical care, entertainment, airport connections and college, they put more priority on the HRBT.

They're more likely to think that some portion - and it would be a very big portion - of whatever transportation money becomes available should be spent to expand the bridge-tunnel, and reduce the nerve-jangling back-ups.

But people on the other side of the harbor don't depend as much on resources on this side. Their point of view is more likely to be focused on the big economic engines on which their side of Hampton Roads - indeed, all of Hampton Roads - depends: the Navy and the growing port installations.

They're better served not by expanding the HRBT, but by the proposed third crossing of the harbor. (As purists never tire of pointing out, it's not really a third crossing, but rather an elaboration of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel and I-664, with spurs and added capacity to improve access to the Navy base and ports.)

That economic reality helps explain why the extensive research and deliberation that previously went into studying the issue - some of it headed by Phil Shucet, who went on to help the entire state by trying to straighten out the mess that VDOT had become - picked the third crossing as the better option.

And why it was previously endorsed by the regional group, made up of officials from the area's cities and counties, that decides which projects will be at the front of the funding queue.

It wasn't until after this long process had played out that Peninsula legislators collectively pushed the HRBT to the forefront. Probably because one thing elected officials' ears are tuned to is the sound of unhappy voters, and lots of Peninsula residents are unhappy about the routine congestion and delays at the HRBT bottleneck.

It is, undeniably, an irritant. An impediment to our ability to take advantage of those desirable or necessary resources on the other side of the water.

But this is also undeniable: The region (and state) hasn't been able to come up with the money for even one crossing project. It's hardly likely we'll come up with enough for two. Nor is it sensible that if a big pot of road money did open up, it should be poured into two crossing projects, eating up funding needed for other, also-important needs.

We probably can't have both, not in a future that's foreseeable given the state of transportation needs and funding in Virginia.

Dollars are scarce, and it seems clear that the region will get a bigger bang for its bucks from the third crossing. It will better meet the needs of the military and better position the ports to grow and to claim some of the traffic that may be headed to the East Coast with expansion of the Panama Canal. Together, they're the source of many thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in the local economy.

The half million dollars spent on the new consultant study isn't a waste if it lays out information that helps residents understand the options. The discussion - what do we want and how should we spend our money? - is a healthy civic exercise. And since the General Assembly has failed to address transportation, it's not like any actual projects are being held up as we revisit the list.

So the renewed interest in the HRBT expansion has no downside, and offers an interesting, potentially constructive way to explore the overall regional transportation question until the General Assembly and economy right themselves. But in the end, it seems to come down to this: Expanding the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel might do more to calm the nerves of people on the Peninsula, but it will do less for the rest of the region, and less to plump up their collective pockets. As a practical and political fact, the discussion remains open. As an economic fact, though, jobs and future prosperity are likely to trump commuting ease when it comes to picking which road projects come first.